@SimGuruSteve:
Thank you for the link to the patch. I'm so glad that I'll be able to play Supernatural again without the raging zombies I got from saving on a full moon.
@ceejay402: Thanks for taking the time to post a link.
1.47 Mac patches should be available across the board. If you don't have a patch available (or it doesn't apply correctly) let me know. This is the specific reason why I approached our team to get a SimGuru account to ask for and respond with info directly to you guys in the forums.
Upon opening the launcher I am told there is an update, which I run. It downloads and verifies, then a new window appears saying: "Some of the files have been modified! Please re-install", for which my options are View Log or Quit. If I Quit, I can reopen the launcher and it tells me again to do the update. The update request appears each and every time I open my Launcher.
I have only recently created a new User account on my iMac, as Sims 3 stopped loading altogether on my previous account. Creating a new account seemed to fix the issue (except all the usual bugs) until now.
Even if I run without installing the patch, when I now open my most recent game, the game crashes. I'm going to do some testing on that savegame, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were related to the patch issue.
The Deets: In Australia
Version 16.0.136.019017
All EPs installed except Diesel Stuff.
<string>16.0.136.019017</string>
@SimGuruSteve:
Thank you for the link to the patch. I'm so glad that I'll be able to play Supernatural again without the raging zombies I got from saving on a full moon.
Let me know if reverting works for you and what you did to get there if it does. I really don't want to have to uninstall everything and reinstall every single EP and SP up to Supernatural (again).
It downloads and verifies, then a new window appears saying: "Some of the files have been modified! Please re-install"
[...]
<string>16.0.136.019017</string>[/i]
Fuschia: the string listed is actually from the Seasons expansion pack. I'd need the basegame version if you can navigate there instead. HOWEVER, since you're getting the error above, you must be on 1.42.
The error it gives is because something (custom content, mods, etc) has modified your basegame. For the 1.42 -> 1.47 patch, it expects to find the original unmodified file in order to replace only part of the changes. This is why the patch is smaller.
While I can't help debug much about why those files have changed (moooods?) the only real solution is to either uninstall/reinstall, or apply the cumulative patch. I don't know how to link to a specific message in a thread, so here's the quote:
OH A 1.39 PATCH BLESS YOU. Bless you. I'll be playing The Sims again by the end of the day. (Without Seasons, of course.)
I forgot to mention that I have NO idea how downgrading with a patch will work. Um, so you'd have to uninstall/reinstall. Which is a big fat pain, I know. I've probably installed/uninstalled on Mac more than anyone ever in this forum.
I have an enormous list of questions and querys and while I don't expect you to be able to answer them I wonder if you could maybe give your opinion on some of them.
I probably shouldn't devote TOO much time to all of these questions. I will do my best to figure out what we need from users to fix bugs, but at the moment it really is just QA resources putting time back on Mac issues. Finding bugs, sending them off to be fixed, and attempting to iron out problems before deadlines for the next patch.
Yeah, I have gotten the general idea from my results that I'm going to have to reinstall the base game and every single expansion and stuff pack up to just prior to Seasons. Even though the game is really actually at 1.39. Harflearflearfle.
I seriously spend more time fighting with this game than playing it.
SimGuruSteve, if you're still here, first of all I want to thank you for actually talking to us. I won't pretend that it's been incredibly useful when it comes to actually fixing the game, but you're pretty much the only Guru I've seen actually visit the Mac forum to even talk to us, so I really do appreciate that.
That being said, as much as I respect the teams that deliver us these games, there's no getting around it - the games that are being delivered for Macs are subpar, and the support for it even less so. The games themselves are great, but the fact that they are incredibly difficult to run, are temperamental, full of bugs, and force us, the users, to rely on unofficial info and fixes to try and put our games together ourselves, as absolutely no one from EA helps us on that task. I mean Seasons was released in November, it's January, and the patch is much more interested in getting the game reading for the next stuff pack than it is to try to actually fix our issues.
I get it - developing games is incredibly busy, complex, and not every issue can be fixed when you're dealing with literally thousands of variables. However, the majority of the mac simming community constantly reports bugs after bugs after bugs, and often the same - crashing to desktop, debug messages, error 12, CAS crashes - and all these when people are running a totally clean game! I've been forced myself to spend hours and hours trying to coddle my game into running, which is honestly not supposed to be my responsibility, when I paid $60 for a base game and then shelled out between $20 and $40 for each and every single expansion pack and stuff pack since. That's really a lot to ask of users, and it's especially frustrating when the support we get is absolutely dismal. Not that anyone's ever been rude, it's just that they have no clue how to help us at all - every time I mention I am on a Mac when I contact support, I know I've already lost the person on the other end of the line. They just can't help, and no one will, so we have to help ourselves.
I love the Sims. I got hooked on the original, bought every single mac game for the Sims 2 and have done the same for the Sims 3, but I really do think that my story with the sims ends here. I can't go through another cycle of buying a game and then spending more time trying to fix it than playing it, it's gotten ridiculous. I just think whoever is in charge of the Mac division really ought to know how frustrated and disillusioned, and even angry, this community is. We feel like you don't value us at all as customers, and that doesn't really inspire me to buy anything else from EA, knowing that if someone doesn't work out I can't rely on the company to help at all or treat us well.
Sorry this is long, but I guess I have a lot of feelings on this issue!
I have an enormous list of questions and querys and while I don't expect you to be able to answer them I wonder if you could maybe give your opinion on some of them.
I probably shouldn't devote TOO much time to all of these questions. I will do my best to figure out what we need from users to fix bugs, but at the moment it really is just QA resources putting time back on Mac issues. Finding bugs, sending them off to be fixed, and attempting to iron out problems before deadlines for the next patch.[/quote]
Guru Steve
Really?
You have NO thoughts on any of the things I mentioned?
" I will do my best to figure out what we need from users to fix bugs, but at the moment it really is just QA resources putting time back on Mac issues. Finding bugs, sending them off to be fixed, and attempting to iron out problems before deadlines for the next patch."
Thanks, at least, for this.
But, what does it mean exactly?
What is QA resources? Question and Answer resources? What is this? How do we access QA?
Are they "putting time back on Mac issues" ? ( Not that this makes any sense to me.)
Are you able to fight in our corner and make sure that they do do something?
How many people would you think might be "putting time back on Mac issues", 1, 10, 50 ?
How low a priority is this for EA?
Lower, obviously, than the problem with "collecting space rocks".
The majority of us WILL DO ANYTHING WE CAN TO HELP.
Please just let us know what you need.
Just as an aside, as OT as it is, the freezing/crashing issue can be replicated within ten minutes pretty easily in CAS. Just try on various hairstyles, including hairstyles with accessories, customize the color on the accessories, try to save your custom colored style, go back to fiddling with hairstyles. You really can't go wrong there. Hairstyle fiddling always always always gives me a crash. Late last night I had the game open for NINE entire minutes because I was playing with clothes before hair. GASP.
So, not exactly the most exact of replication steps, but it's pretty reliable for me.
That is so strange as I'm the exact opposite. Hair I can manage reasonably well, it's the clothing that kills mine. I now save in threes, top three amended save, bottom three amended save and heaven forfend you try different clothes on them! It's one outfit only in mine.
What is QA resources? Question and Answer resources? What is this? How do we access QA?
Sorry, QA = Quality Assurance, aka testers. What I mean by "putting time back on Mac issues" is redirecting our testing team towards spending time with the Mac build. Specific reproducible steps on hardware we have (or close to it) with the version the breakage first starts on is the best information we can gain. We then will try to reproduce it locally and further narrow down variables. When we have a solid understanding of what the bug is, we try to fix it.
With Mac the "we try to fix it" part is where it gets tricky. Since we work with a third party team, we're not actually the ones that have the capability to fix it. Instead, we hand them as much information as we can and they work on it with their team. They will respond with "cannot reproduce" (in which case we repeat the previous steps to narrow down the issue) or a proposed fix. We test the fix, test everything else around the fix to see if it broke something else, then either approve or reject the fix. The latter of course requires more communication back and forth until the problem is solved.
Now, with that in mind, let me answer the other question:
Seasons was released in November, it's January, and the patch is much more interested in getting the game reading for the next stuff pack than it is to try to actually fix our issues.
Unfortunately the content of the patch was specifically for SP08 (70's, 80's, & 90's), and likely stopped accepting fixes in the October-November range. I'm sorry that the release timing of this patch had the unintentional side effect of insinuating that there would be something "useful" (your guys' words, not mine!).
Meanwhile my manager has already been gracious enough to let me spend two solid work days in the forums, but I will take some of the bugs to heart and test them out personally when I can.
Ninja edit: added a quick extra explanation in a section.
Just as an aside, as OT as it is, the freezing/crashing issue can be replicated within ten minutes pretty easily in CAS. Just try on various hairstyles, including hairstyles with accessories, customize the color on the accessories, try to save your custom colored style, go back to fiddling with hairstyles. [...]
So, not exactly the most exact of replication steps, but it's pretty reliable for me.
That is so strange as I'm the exact opposite. Hair I can manage reasonably well, it's the clothing that kills mine.[...]
And herein lies the precise problem with trying to create reproducible steps.
Regardless, these two seem simple and is probably where I'll start trying to reproduce bugs.
Yeah, i checked these from my Mac and:
I'm from Finland
Versio 16.0.136.019001 (? is that right, i have updated to 1.42)
Nope, my launcher says it's full updated..
<string>1.42.130.019002</string>
Thanks for looking, I don't see anything wrong, so I'll ask two more questions:
What is your CiderBuild number? This is immediately above the ClientBuild in the same Info.plist.
Please let me know the first few lines of this file: . The section should look like this:
Just as an aside, as OT as it is, the freezing/crashing issue can be replicated within ten minutes pretty easily in CAS. Just try on various hairstyles, including hairstyles with accessories, customize the color on the accessories, try to save your custom colored style, go back to fiddling with hairstyles. [...]
So, not exactly the most exact of replication steps, but it's pretty reliable for me.
That is so strange as I'm the exact opposite. Hair I can manage reasonably well, it's the clothing that kills mine.[...]
And herein lies the precise problem with trying to create reproducible steps.
Regardless, these two seem simple and is probably where I'll start trying to reproduce bugs.
If it helps narrow it down at all I have the most problems with young adult and adult women clothing wise. I've got all the EP and SPs installed and a lot of the store. I can mess with hair a bit but I don't often change it between ages and usually go with base colours since I've been having problems. CAS always works best if you use it first thing from starting the game, to the point where I send a sims to the dresser to plan an outfit save quit and restart game. I've been having this issue since pets was released.
I have similar issues in build mode too, although that takes longer to build up.
Thank you for coming on the forums, it helps just knowing somebody can hear us and is trying to help.
There are also a lot of graphical issues, especially in Fall and Winter seasons. After CAS, please take a look at those seasons as there are VERY SERIOUS and SEVERE graphical issues.
What is QA resources? Question and Answer resources? What is this? How do we access QA?
Sorry, QA = Quality Assurance, aka testers. What I mean by "putting time back on Mac issues" is redirecting our testing team towards spending time with the Mac build. Specific reproducible steps on hardware we have (or close to it) with the version the breakage first starts on is the best information we can gain. We then will try to reproduce it locally and further narrow down variables. When we have a solid understanding of what the bug is, we try to fix it.
With Mac the "we try to fix it" part is where it gets tricky. Since we work with a third party team, we're not actually the ones that have the capability to fix it. Instead, we hand them as much information as we can and they work on it with their team. They will respond with "cannot reproduce" (in which case we repeat the previous steps to narrow down the issue) or a proposed fix. We test the fix, test everything else around the fix to see if it broke something else, then either approve or reject the fix. The latter of course requires more communication back and forth until the problem is solved.
Now, with that in mind, let me answer the other question:
Seasons was released in November, it's January, and the patch is much more interested in getting the game reading for the next stuff pack than it is to try to actually fix our issues.
Unfortunately the content of the patch was specifically for SP08 (70's, 80's, & 90's), and likely stopped accepting fixes in the October-November range. I'm sorry that the release timing of this patch had the unintentional side effect of insinuating that there would be something "useful" (your guys' words, not mine!).
Meanwhile my manager has already been gracious enough to let me spend two solid work days in the forums, but I will take some of the bugs to heart and test them out personally when I can.
Ninja edit: added a quick extra explanation in a section.
SimGuru Steve,
Thank you for the explanations you provided, it does help.
In case it helps with investigations into the problems, i am certain that things have become progressively worse since the Pets EP.
The CAS issues, for me, began with messed up clothes icons, about three weeks after installing Pets.
Next came Blacked out/ greyed out/ whited out/ or variously coloured and pixilated Sims.
At this point I was still able to make Sims, but making an animal crashed Cas.
Completely reinstalled every EP and Stuff Pack
Another week or so and Cas would crash if I tried to make more than three sims in a family.
This is when the 'Exception Raised' errors started happening.
So I guess about two and a half years ago I started trying to get some help from EA.
Also thats around the time that we started to see the Posts about the "Exception Raised' error.
I bought Showtime and Katy Perry hoping that the updates might help.
Completely reinstalled every EP and Stuff Pack
Things got worse.
Could not get a Sim out of Cas at all.
Now My whole computer would just 'Freeze' in Cas and I had to power down. ( Really bad news for my Mac).
Started seeing more and more posts about "Freezing" and "Lag"
Stopped going in to Cas at all as there was no point.
CDT would happen more and more often. No particular similarities to the crashes. In game play- CDT, in build mode - CDT, at start up - CDT.
Began having to save the game every 10 mins or so. Sometimes got CDT while saving.
Bought Supernatural in the hope that things in Cas may have been sorted as, surely, EA had to rewrite it for the fairies and witches???
Completely reinstalled all EPs and Stuff Packs
Managed to make a couple of single Sims but could not choose outfits in any category as Cas would freeze or crash as soon as I tried. Only managed to make a couple of new Sims by removing ALL SAVED SIMS from the folder. Somehow doing this would allow me to get one Sim at a time out as long as I saved EVERY change as it would freeze or quit within a couple of minutes. Took around 4-6 reboots to make one Sim, with NO OUTFITS.
Time in the game environment dropping by around five minutes every time I rebooted the game.
When I bought and installed Seasons, again in the vain hope that something might have been done to fix the problems, I was down to about 5-10 mins in the game before CDT, Freeze, Exception Raised.
In case it is a problem with memory leakage I completely reinstalled The Base Game and all EPs but left out Showcase and all the Stuff Packs, I downloaded and installed Xquartz, in case it helped Cider.
Now, in Seasons, Cas Crashes within a minute. Can't make ANY SIMS, cannot enter Cas to make an outdoor outfit for sims in game. Game play is down to 2-6 mins. CAS problems, Freezing, Exception Raised, Service Initialisation Failure.
As far as I can see from the posts, most have a similar progression of downward spiral to me.
I hope this helps in some small way.
I do believe that it is all progressive, therefore it may take whoever is working on this many hours of play in order that the problems begin to become evident.
You say "Meanwhile my manager has already been gracious enough to let me spend two solid work days in the forums,"
so what do you normally do when you are at work?
I have to say that I am very glad that your manager is 'being gracious', but, you know, 2 DAYS of having a SimGuru available on our forum out of nearly 1000 DAYS ??? just doesn't cut it somehow.
Tell him/her how grateful we all are for your time, but that we ask if it could happen just a bit more often, PLEASE.
As far as I can see from the posts, most have a similar progression of downward spiral to me.
I hope this helps in some small way.
I would agree, I don't think I have had quite as many problems as others have for as long, but it is getting progressively worse and at this point the vast majority of us seem to have the similar issues. Hopefully it should be easy to recreate and we are able to get a fix for it soon.
After a gazillion uninstalls and reinstalls (and using Bluebellflora's instructions) and spending big bucks to install more memory, but still having crash (Cider), and CAS issues, I saw a comment in one of the posts about EA suggesting that if there are issues to "not install 1.42 update".
So, once again, I did my unin/rein and this time have taken my time to play in each world after each EP or SP for quite awhile to make sure everything's working. I'm up to Generations now, and still not having any problems.
I am not planning on installing the 1.42, but CAN I install 1.47 if 1.42 isn't installed? And can Seasons run without 1.42 being installed?
I'm not about to go through this all over again. Life's too short and there's plenty of other great games out there to play, that don't give me such a headache or such heartbreak (it's not easy losing all your Sims and all the custom homes and community properties you have created...over and over again).
With Mac the "we try to fix it" part is where it gets tricky. Since we work with a third party team, we're not actually the ones that have the capability to fix it. Instead, we hand them as much information as we can and they work on it with their team. They will respond with "cannot reproduce" (in which case we repeat the previous steps to narrow down the issue) or a proposed fix. We test the fix, test everything else around the fix to see if it broke something else, then either approve or reject the fix. The latter of course requires more communication back and forth until the problem is solved.
Hello SimGuruSteve, it's nice to see a SimGuru in the Mac forum for a change and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to Mac simmers about the problems we've been having, particularly since Seasons. I appreciate your frank responses and understand that you cannot single handedly fix everything.
Regarding your quote above, if the best EA can do is to pass data to the third party (presumably by that you mean the people who make Cider?) would it help for Mac simmers to post their crash log reports? I had a big folder of these but unfortunately deleted it last weekend after making the decision to give up and install Windows on my iMac. However other simmers may have these available.
Also this forum gets very clogged up with threads but there are a few bigger threads in which people have tried to consolidate information. Examples would be this one regarding crashing since Seasons:
jooliea wrote:
Let me know if reverting works for you and what you did to get there if it does. I really don't want to have to uninstall everything and reinstall every single EP and SP up to Supernatural (again).
I wish I could help, but about 2 weeks ago I uninstalled and reinstalled everything to get rid of 1.42. If you use Time Machine though, I have had some luck going back to a previous patch using that. I'm sure you've done enough troubleshooting with this game that you're very familiar with the location of every single sims 3 related file on your computer. It's a little tedious doing things this way, but not nearly as tedious as reinstalling everything.
D'oh! I already embarked on the First Great Reinstall of 2013. I hadn't even thought about trying to restore all the various files from backup from way back when. I'm not sure how much easier or difficult that would be at this point, since I'm already mid-install, but I'll keep the SUPER OBVIOUS THING I MISSED in mind for next time. Haha.
Actually, the cider version 8625 is the (read: should be the only) cider that was released with 1.47. If you go back to check your basegame it ought to read 1.47.6.0200XX - maybe it was patched somewhere in between? The version number in the lower left of the launcher hides a lot by only showing you the product version. On PC, we only display the basegame and I'm making a case for changing the Mac to do the same. When there's a patch out and a user doesn't know what the game is currently on, it's hard to tell if you have it, or you can't see it.
I am not planning on installing the 1.42, but CAN I install 1.47 if 1.42 isn't installed? And can Seasons run without 1.42 being installed?
You can always install the latest version without the ones in-between, the launcher should pick up the cumulative patch for that. However, Seasons will only work with 1.42 and later (ie, only 1.42 and 1.47).
After a gazillion uninstalls and reinstalls (and using Bluebellflora's instructions)
For those uninstalling/reinstalling - I would suggest moving the basegame up to the highest (you're willing to go) as early in the processes as possible. Now Bluebellflora may have further reasons behind her suggestion to install in order, but from an engineering standpoint installing in order will do this:
Install Basegame (1.0)
Install EP1 (patches basegame to 1.5, installs EP1)
Install SP1 (patches basegame to 1.9, installs SP1)
Install EP2 (patches basegame to 1.12, installs EP2)
etc...
Instead I would do one of two things. Option 1:
Install Basegame (1.0)
Patch live to 1.47
Install EP1 (Recognizes basegame is higher than 1.5 and skips patch, installs EP1)
Install SP1 (skips patch, installs SP1)
etc...
OR, if you don't want to be near Seasons because it is unstable:
Install Basegame (1.0)
Install highest product you want such as Supernatural (patches to 1.3X (?), installs EP)
Install EP1 (Recognizes basegame is higher than 1.5 and skips patch, installs EP1)
Install SP1 (skips patch, installs SP1)
etc...
This should take less time with identical (if not cleaner?) results.
And for the rest of the comments about issues and how I can find them, I just have to make a blanket statement and say that I did read them all and will go back to them when I get a chance to play more with the Mac.
You can always install the latest version without the ones in-between, the launcher should pick up the cumulative patch for that. However, Seasons will only work with 1.42 and later (ie, only 1.42 and 1.47).
Sorry, SimGuruSteve, but when you say Seasons will only work with 1.42 and later, do you mean (1.42 and 1.47) or (either 1.42 or 1.47)
Keeping my fingers crossed that you mean the latter.
I didn't visit the boards tonight because I was busy reinstalling all my games. So I didn't see SimGuruSteve's post about a different order of installation, and I very carefully installed them in the order they were released and then applied the 1.39 cumulative patch.
It does not work. I get the message "Your The Sims 3 Base Game is incompatible with the current Sims 3 Expansion Pack. Please update your game via the game launcher."
I am at 1.39.3.018001. That should be wholly compatible with Supernatural. That IS the freaking Supernatural patch, ISN'T IT?
I spent four hours doing this. I don't want to spend ANOTHER FOUR HOURS doing this. This is like the fourth or fifth time I have uninstalled and reinstalled all my games. I seriously want to cry out of frustration. I really can't describe how incredibly unhappy I am right now. I don't understand why this doesn't work. It really seems like it SHOULD work.
You can always install the latest version without the ones in-between, the launcher should pick up the cumulative patch for that. However, Seasons will only work with 1.42 and later (ie, only 1.42 and 1.47).
Sorry, SimGuruSteve, but when you say Seasons will only work with 1.42 and later, do you mean (1.42 and 1.47) or (either 1.42 or 1.47)
Keeping my fingers crossed that you mean the latter.
Seasons requires a basegame at 1.42 or later. Currently there are only two flavors, 1.42 and 1.47. Either will work. My point above is that 1.39 will not work with seasons.
I didn't visit the boards tonight because I was busy reinstalling all my games. So I didn't see SimGuruSteve's post about a different order of installation, and I very carefully installed them in the order they were released and then applied the 1.39 cumulative patch.
It does not work. I get the message "Your The Sims 3 Base Game is incompatible with the current Sims 3 Expansion Pack. Please update your game via the game launcher."
I am at 1.39.3.018001. That should be wholly compatible with Supernatural. That IS the freaking Supernatural patch, ISN'T IT?
I spent four hours doing this. I don't want to spend ANOTHER FOUR HOURS doing this. This is like the fourth or fifth time I have uninstalled and reinstalled all my games. I seriously want to cry out of frustration. I really can't describe how incredibly unhappy I am right now. I don't understand why this doesn't work. It really seems like it SHOULD work.
Off the top of my head that should work, 1.39 should be sufficient for everything besides Seasons. I'll double check my version numbers when I get into work tomorrow.
Can you double check your basegame and cider version through the info.plist?
Sorry, I'd normally give you more detailed instructions or not bother posting to say "I'll check when I get in tomorrow," but I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you when I answered WeasieLou. Or I think that's the name. I'm typing in bed on an iPod, I can't go back and check.
Comments
I actually do believe it will be fixed eventually.
Thank you for the link to the patch. I'm so glad that I'll be able to play Supernatural again without the raging zombies I got from saving on a full moon.
@ceejay402: Thanks for taking the time to post a link.
Upon opening the launcher I am told there is an update, which I run. It downloads and verifies, then a new window appears saying: "Some of the files have been modified! Please re-install", for which my options are View Log or Quit. If I Quit, I can reopen the launcher and it tells me again to do the update. The update request appears each and every time I open my Launcher.
I have only recently created a new User account on my iMac, as Sims 3 stopped loading altogether on my previous account. Creating a new account seemed to fix the issue (except all the usual bugs) until now.
Even if I run without installing the patch, when I now open my most recent game, the game crashes. I'm going to do some testing on that savegame, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were related to the patch issue.
The Deets:
In Australia
Version 16.0.136.019017
All EPs installed except Diesel Stuff.
<string>16.0.136.019017</string>
Let me know if reverting works for you and what you did to get there if it does. I really don't want to have to uninstall everything and reinstall every single EP and SP up to Supernatural (again).
The error it gives is because something (custom content, mods, etc) has modified your basegame. For the 1.42 -> 1.47 patch, it expects to find the original unmodified file in order to replace only part of the changes. This is why the patch is smaller.
While I can't help debug much about why those files have changed (moooods?) the only real solution is to either uninstall/reinstall, or apply the cumulative patch. I don't know how to link to a specific message in a thread, so here's the quote: I forgot to mention that I have NO idea how downgrading with a patch will work. Um, so you'd have to uninstall/reinstall. Which is a big fat pain, I know. I've probably installed/uninstalled on Mac more than anyone ever in this forum.
I probably shouldn't devote TOO much time to all of these questions. I will do my best to figure out what we need from users to fix bugs, but at the moment it really is just QA resources putting time back on Mac issues. Finding bugs, sending them off to be fixed, and attempting to iron out problems before deadlines for the next patch.
I seriously spend more time fighting with this game than playing it.
That being said, as much as I respect the teams that deliver us these games, there's no getting around it - the games that are being delivered for Macs are subpar, and the support for it even less so. The games themselves are great, but the fact that they are incredibly difficult to run, are temperamental, full of bugs, and force us, the users, to rely on unofficial info and fixes to try and put our games together ourselves, as absolutely no one from EA helps us on that task. I mean Seasons was released in November, it's January, and the patch is much more interested in getting the game reading for the next stuff pack than it is to try to actually fix our issues.
I get it - developing games is incredibly busy, complex, and not every issue can be fixed when you're dealing with literally thousands of variables. However, the majority of the mac simming community constantly reports bugs after bugs after bugs, and often the same - crashing to desktop, debug messages, error 12, CAS crashes - and all these when people are running a totally clean game! I've been forced myself to spend hours and hours trying to coddle my game into running, which is honestly not supposed to be my responsibility, when I paid $60 for a base game and then shelled out between $20 and $40 for each and every single expansion pack and stuff pack since. That's really a lot to ask of users, and it's especially frustrating when the support we get is absolutely dismal. Not that anyone's ever been rude, it's just that they have no clue how to help us at all - every time I mention I am on a Mac when I contact support, I know I've already lost the person on the other end of the line. They just can't help, and no one will, so we have to help ourselves.
I love the Sims. I got hooked on the original, bought every single mac game for the Sims 2 and have done the same for the Sims 3, but I really do think that my story with the sims ends here. I can't go through another cycle of buying a game and then spending more time trying to fix it than playing it, it's gotten ridiculous. I just think whoever is in charge of the Mac division really ought to know how frustrated and disillusioned, and even angry, this community is. We feel like you don't value us at all as customers, and that doesn't really inspire me to buy anything else from EA, knowing that if someone doesn't work out I can't rely on the company to help at all or treat us well.
Sorry this is long, but I guess I have a lot of feelings on this issue!
Guru Steve
Really?
You have NO thoughts on any of the things I mentioned?
" I will do my best to figure out what we need from users to fix bugs, but at the moment it really is just QA resources putting time back on Mac issues. Finding bugs, sending them off to be fixed, and attempting to iron out problems before deadlines for the next patch."
Thanks, at least, for this.
But, what does it mean exactly?
What is QA resources? Question and Answer resources? What is this? How do we access QA?
Are they "putting time back on Mac issues" ? ( Not that this makes any sense to me.)
Are you able to fight in our corner and make sure that they do do something?
How many people would you think might be "putting time back on Mac issues", 1, 10, 50 ?
How low a priority is this for EA?
Lower, obviously, than the problem with "collecting space rocks".
The majority of us WILL DO ANYTHING WE CAN TO HELP.
Please just let us know what you need.
Thanks again for your time.
That is so strange as I'm the exact opposite. Hair I can manage reasonably well, it's the clothing that kills mine. I now save in threes, top three amended save, bottom three amended save and heaven forfend you try different clothes on them! It's one outfit only in mine.
Sorry, QA = Quality Assurance, aka testers. What I mean by "putting time back on Mac issues" is redirecting our testing team towards spending time with the Mac build. Specific reproducible steps on hardware we have (or close to it) with the version the breakage first starts on is the best information we can gain. We then will try to reproduce it locally and further narrow down variables. When we have a solid understanding of what the bug is, we try to fix it.
With Mac the "we try to fix it" part is where it gets tricky. Since we work with a third party team, we're not actually the ones that have the capability to fix it. Instead, we hand them as much information as we can and they work on it with their team. They will respond with "cannot reproduce" (in which case we repeat the previous steps to narrow down the issue) or a proposed fix. We test the fix, test everything else around the fix to see if it broke something else, then either approve or reject the fix. The latter of course requires more communication back and forth until the problem is solved.
Now, with that in mind, let me answer the other question: It is absolutely NOT lower priority, but it is multitudes more difficult. Difficulty to fix is the determining factor on what gets fixed.
Unfortunately the content of the patch was specifically for SP08 (70's, 80's, & 90's), and likely stopped accepting fixes in the October-November range. I'm sorry that the release timing of this patch had the unintentional side effect of insinuating that there would be something "useful" (your guys' words, not mine!).
Meanwhile my manager has already been gracious enough to let me spend two solid work days in the forums, but I will take some of the bugs to heart and test them out personally when I can.
Ninja edit: added a quick extra explanation in a section.
Regardless, these two seem simple and is probably where I'll start trying to reproduce bugs.
<key>CiderBuild</key>
<string>8625</string>
<patch NewLauncherTargetHigh="8361-1.42.130.019001" NewLauncherTargetLow="8361-1.42.130.019001" NewVersion="8625-1.47.6.020001d" PatchContentId="To-8625-1.47.6.020001-From-8361-1.42.130.019001.tgz.md5" Required="1" URL="http://llnet.thesims.cdn.ea.com/sims/u/f/sims3/mac/To-8625-1.47.6.020001-From-8361-1.42.130.019001.tgz.md5">
Any help, huh?
If it helps narrow it down at all I have the most problems with young adult and adult women clothing wise. I've got all the EP and SPs installed and a lot of the store. I can mess with hair a bit but I don't often change it between ages and usually go with base colours since I've been having problems. CAS always works best if you use it first thing from starting the game, to the point where I send a sims to the dresser to plan an outfit save quit and restart game. I've been having this issue since pets was released.
I have similar issues in build mode too, although that takes longer to build up.
Thank you for coming on the forums, it helps just knowing somebody can hear us and is trying to help.
There are also a lot of graphical issues, especially in Fall and Winter seasons. After CAS, please take a look at those seasons as there are VERY SERIOUS and SEVERE graphical issues.
Thanks
SimGuru Steve,
Thank you for the explanations you provided, it does help.
In case it helps with investigations into the problems, i am certain that things have become progressively worse since the Pets EP.
The CAS issues, for me, began with messed up clothes icons, about three weeks after installing Pets.
Next came Blacked out/ greyed out/ whited out/ or variously coloured and pixilated Sims.
At this point I was still able to make Sims, but making an animal crashed Cas.
Completely reinstalled every EP and Stuff Pack
Another week or so and Cas would crash if I tried to make more than three sims in a family.
This is when the 'Exception Raised' errors started happening.
So I guess about two and a half years ago I started trying to get some help from EA.
Also thats around the time that we started to see the Posts about the "Exception Raised' error.
I bought Showtime and Katy Perry hoping that the updates might help.
Completely reinstalled every EP and Stuff Pack
Things got worse.
Could not get a Sim out of Cas at all.
Now My whole computer would just 'Freeze' in Cas and I had to power down. ( Really bad news for my Mac).
Started seeing more and more posts about "Freezing" and "Lag"
Stopped going in to Cas at all as there was no point.
CDT would happen more and more often. No particular similarities to the crashes. In game play- CDT, in build mode - CDT, at start up - CDT.
Began having to save the game every 10 mins or so. Sometimes got CDT while saving.
Bought Supernatural in the hope that things in Cas may have been sorted as, surely, EA had to rewrite it for the fairies and witches???
Completely reinstalled all EPs and Stuff Packs
Managed to make a couple of single Sims but could not choose outfits in any category as Cas would freeze or crash as soon as I tried. Only managed to make a couple of new Sims by removing ALL SAVED SIMS from the folder. Somehow doing this would allow me to get one Sim at a time out as long as I saved EVERY change as it would freeze or quit within a couple of minutes. Took around 4-6 reboots to make one Sim, with NO OUTFITS.
Time in the game environment dropping by around five minutes every time I rebooted the game.
When I bought and installed Seasons, again in the vain hope that something might have been done to fix the problems, I was down to about 5-10 mins in the game before CDT, Freeze, Exception Raised.
In case it is a problem with memory leakage I completely reinstalled The Base Game and all EPs but left out Showcase and all the Stuff Packs, I downloaded and installed Xquartz, in case it helped Cider.
Now, in Seasons, Cas Crashes within a minute. Can't make ANY SIMS, cannot enter Cas to make an outdoor outfit for sims in game. Game play is down to 2-6 mins. CAS problems, Freezing, Exception Raised, Service Initialisation Failure.
As far as I can see from the posts, most have a similar progression of downward spiral to me.
I hope this helps in some small way.
I do believe that it is all progressive, therefore it may take whoever is working on this many hours of play in order that the problems begin to become evident.
You say "Meanwhile my manager has already been gracious enough to let me spend two solid work days in the forums,"
so what do you normally do when you are at work?
I have to say that I am very glad that your manager is 'being gracious', but, you know, 2 DAYS of having a SimGuru available on our forum out of nearly 1000 DAYS ??? just doesn't cut it somehow.
Tell him/her how grateful we all are for your time, but that we ask if it could happen just a bit more often, PLEASE.
I would agree, I don't think I have had quite as many problems as others have for as long, but it is getting progressively worse and at this point the vast majority of us seem to have the similar issues. Hopefully it should be easy to recreate and we are able to get a fix for it soon.
After a gazillion uninstalls and reinstalls (and using Bluebellflora's instructions) and spending big bucks to install more memory, but still having crash (Cider), and CAS issues, I saw a comment in one of the posts about EA suggesting that if there are issues to "not install 1.42 update".
So, once again, I did my unin/rein and this time have taken my time to play in each world after each EP or SP for quite awhile to make sure everything's working. I'm up to Generations now, and still not having any problems.
I am not planning on installing the 1.42, but CAN I install 1.47 if 1.42 isn't installed? And can Seasons run without 1.42 being installed?
I'm not about to go through this all over again. Life's too short and there's plenty of other great games out there to play, that don't give me such a headache or such heartbreak (it's not easy losing all your Sims and all the custom homes and community properties you have created...over and over again).
Hello SimGuruSteve, it's nice to see a SimGuru in the Mac forum for a change and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to Mac simmers about the problems we've been having, particularly since Seasons. I appreciate your frank responses and understand that you cannot single handedly fix everything.
Regarding your quote above, if the best EA can do is to pass data to the third party (presumably by that you mean the people who make Cider?) would it help for Mac simmers to post their crash log reports? I had a big folder of these but unfortunately deleted it last weekend after making the decision to give up and install Windows on my iMac. However other simmers may have these available.
Also this forum gets very clogged up with threads but there are a few bigger threads in which people have tried to consolidate information. Examples would be this one regarding crashing since Seasons:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/610466.page
And this one in which specific graphics cards were implicated in relation to the distorted graphics some simmers are experiencing:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/614262.page
If these threads and others like them could receive attention, it could be a source of useful data for the team.
Caspin
I wish I could help, but about 2 weeks ago I uninstalled and reinstalled everything to get rid of 1.42. If you use Time Machine though, I have had some luck going back to a previous patch using that. I'm sure you've done enough troubleshooting with this game that you're very familiar with the location of every single sims 3 related file on your computer. It's a little tedious doing things this way, but not nearly as tedious as reinstalling everything.
You can always install the latest version without the ones in-between, the launcher should pick up the cumulative patch for that. However, Seasons will only work with 1.42 and later (ie, only 1.42 and 1.47).
For those uninstalling/reinstalling - I would suggest moving the basegame up to the highest (you're willing to go) as early in the processes as possible. Now Bluebellflora may have further reasons behind her suggestion to install in order, but from an engineering standpoint installing in order will do this:
Install Basegame (1.0)
Install EP1 (patches basegame to 1.5, installs EP1)
Install SP1 (patches basegame to 1.9, installs SP1)
Install EP2 (patches basegame to 1.12, installs EP2)
etc...
Instead I would do one of two things. Option 1:Install Basegame (1.0)
Patch live to 1.47
Install EP1 (Recognizes basegame is higher than 1.5 and skips patch, installs EP1)
Install SP1 (skips patch, installs SP1)
etc...
OR, if you don't want to be near Seasons because it is unstable:Install Basegame (1.0)
Install highest product you want such as Supernatural (patches to 1.3X (?), installs EP)
Install EP1 (Recognizes basegame is higher than 1.5 and skips patch, installs EP1)
Install SP1 (skips patch, installs SP1)
etc...
This should take less time with identical (if not cleaner?) results.And for the rest of the comments about issues and how I can find them, I just have to make a blanket statement and say that I did read them all and will go back to them when I get a chance to play more with the Mac.
Sorry, SimGuruSteve, but when you say Seasons will only work with 1.42 and later, do you mean (1.42 and 1.47) or (either 1.42 or 1.47)
Keeping my fingers crossed that you mean the latter.
I'm too frustrated for words.
I didn't visit the boards tonight because I was busy reinstalling all my games. So I didn't see SimGuruSteve's post about a different order of installation, and I very carefully installed them in the order they were released and then applied the 1.39 cumulative patch.
It does not work. I get the message "Your The Sims 3 Base Game is incompatible with the current Sims 3 Expansion Pack. Please update your game via the game launcher."
I am at 1.39.3.018001. That should be wholly compatible with Supernatural. That IS the freaking Supernatural patch, ISN'T IT?
I spent four hours doing this. I don't want to spend ANOTHER FOUR HOURS doing this. This is like the fourth or fifth time I have uninstalled and reinstalled all my games. I seriously want to cry out of frustration. I really can't describe how incredibly unhappy I am right now. I don't understand why this doesn't work. It really seems like it SHOULD work.
Can you double check your basegame and cider version through the info.plist?
Sorry, I'd normally give you more detailed instructions or not bother posting to say "I'll check when I get in tomorrow," but I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you when I answered WeasieLou. Or I think that's the name. I'm typing in bed on an iPod, I can't go back and check.